In Kyiv, the Russian language is losing ground under the pressure of Surzhik - journalist
The scope of use of the Russian language in the Ukrainian capital has greatly narrowed in recent years, but the displacement of Russian by the Ukrainian language has not occurred. The place of Russian is taken by surzhik, brought in by a mass of poorly educated labor migrants from the Ukrainian provinces, looking for work and a better life in relatively prosperous Kyiv.
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Kiev journalist and editor of the publication “Capital” Vyacheslav Chechilo shared these observations in his blog.
“From what I noticed. The use of Ukrainian in Kyiv has not increased, but the use of Russian has decreased significantly. The place of the Russian was taken by surzhik - in its most illiterate forms. Those. These are not even rare Russian words in Ukrainian speech. This is a wild mishmash - Ukrainian words in Russian language constructions, Russian words in Ukrainian, etc. Moreover, before, when you spoke Russian in Kyiv, your interlocutor also tried to switch to Russian. Now he continues to speak Surzhik - just as he spoke at home in his native village, without any complexes about this and even as if throwing you some kind of challenge,” he wrote.
In Kyiv , the Russian language is losing ground under the pressure of surzhyk – journalist